The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to provisioning support information from an information handling system that has limited operational capabilities.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Many information handling systems such as, for example, server devices, collect support information generated during the operation of the server device and send that support information over a network to a customer support system. The collection of such support information allows for its use (by the customer support system or other device/network administrator) in detecting, addressing, and/or otherwise remedying issues that occur with the server device. However, in some situations, server devices may effected by issue(s) that result in those server devices having limited operational capabilities which can prevent the collection and provisioning of support information (or the sending of previously collected support information) to the customer support system or other device/network administrator. For example, some server devices may experience issue(s) that prevent those server devices from performing a Power On Self Test (POST) (sometimes referred to as a “no-POST event”), which can affect the ability of the server device to collect and/or provision support information. In addition to, or separately from, such no-POST events, server devices may experience issue(s) that prevent the operating system on those server devices from becoming available (sometimes referred to as a “no-OS event”), which can affect the ability of the server device to collect and/or provision support information. In addition to, or separately from, either of such no-POST events and no-OS events, server devices may experience issue(s) that prevent those server devices from providing information for display on a display device (sometimes referred to as a “no-video event”), which can affect the ability of the server device to collect and/or provision support information. In addition to, or separately from, any subset of such no-POST events, no OS events, and no-video events, server devices may experience issue(s) that prevent those server devices from performing network communications (sometimes referred to as a “no-network event”), which can affect the ability of the server device to collect and/or provision support information.
In any of the above scenarios, the server device may be connected to a power source, but the limited operational capabilities resulting from the no-POST, no-OS, no-video, and/or no-network event will prevent support information from being collected and/or retrieved for use in, for example, determining the issue with the server device that is causing that/those issue(s)/event(s). As such, the ability to diagnose the issue(s) occurring with such server devices is greatly limited, and many times results in components being replaced in the server device despite those components working properly.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved support information provisioning system.